Time for some self-respect

The US has ratcheted up the pressure on Israel after the initial flap about Jewish building in East Jerusalem. PM Netanyahu’s apologetic response did not defuse the crisis, showing that it is not about the ‘timing’ of Israel’s announcement, but rather represents a new turn in US policy.

Not only is it assumed that the Administration wants the Ramat Shlomo project canceled, but according to the Jerusalem Post today, the US is asking for further “confidence-building” concessions from Israel, like the release of more Palestinian prisoners.

I suspect that the Palestinians understand Obama’s people better than Netanyahu does. Israel has implemented a settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria (and taken harsh actions against violations), removed roadblocks and checkpoints, and said that it will talk to the Palestinians directly and without preconditions. The Palestinians, on the other hand, insist on preconditions even for indirect talks. And, importantly, they don’t budge.

Naturally the US approach is — since they can’t move the Palestinians — to try to move Israel. The issues on which Israel and the Palestinians are the farthest apart are refugees and Jerusalem; so perhaps the administration thinks that if it can break Israel on Jerusalem, the Palestinians will soften on refugees. Perhaps the Palestinians even led them to believe this.

The Palestinian strategy seems to be to keep telling the Americans that serious negotiations are just around the corner, if they will just force Israel to give up a little bit more. The Americans really, really want to believe them. This time the plan seems to have succeeded remarkably well, and they have gotten the administration to move its own position a notch closer to the Palestinian one.

Of course, this fell on fertile ground in the Obama White House. There’s no shortage of officials sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view.

But just in case you still think this is all about Biden being embarrassed, remember that last August Hillary Clinton anticipated this policy when she called the Supreme Court-approved eviction of Palestinian squatters from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood “deeply regrettable” and “provocative,” giving US sanction to what has become yet another little intifadah of weekly demonstrations of Palestinians, Israeli extremists and international activists.

It’s been suggested that Israel needs to stay on the right side of the Obama Administration if it wants support in acting against the Iranian nuclear weapons project. This is nonsense: the US will do exactly what it thinks is in its interest with respect to Iran no matter what Israel does in Jerusalem.

The US is, lately, a country that has lost a great deal of its clout in the world. Owned by China, bogged down in Afghanistan, soon to see Iraq lost, serially manipulated and made a fool of by Syria and Iran, with no leverage against Russia, losing the confidence of its allies, its officials seem to find solace in the fact that they can make Israeli leaders tremble.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 8:13 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I was pleased to see the response in Washington today, condemning the insult to Israel. Just when I think this entire administration has gone berzerk, some of them manage to emit a ray of hope. It’s about time Israel told us to butt out. The arrogance of this administration is becoming intolerable.